The Cousins

In 1996, Allison leaves Matt several voicemails following their hookup on the beach at Rob Valentine’s party. Allison realizes that Matt is ignoring her, and “what she’d considered a romantic, life-changing” (228) experience was just a casual one-night stand for Matt. She worries that he will get back together with Kayla, although Mildred points out that Anders is seeing “that girl” again. Mildred says that Anders “better watch out if he doesn’t want to find himself trapped” (231), which makes Allison uncomfortable. Allison goes into town with her brothers and makes a trip to the pharmacy by herself. When the clerk isn’t looking, she attempts to shoplift a pregnancy test. To her horror, Anders has followed her into the store and catches her in the act.

Jonah North wakes up to a phone call from his father, who is keeping him in the loop about his family’s bankruptcy court proceedings. His father breaks the news that they had to fire one of their oldest employees to keep the family’s small business, Empire Billiards, up and running. Jonah is furious that his father would fire someone who was “funny, loyal, and more like an uncle to [Jonah]” (241), but ever since Anders’s bad financial advice ruined their family business, his father has to make some tough choices. Milly arrives and shows Jonah a news article from the Gull Cove Gazette, which covers the concert from the night before and reads, “THE STORY CONTINUES: HAS ESTRANGED SON ARCHER BEEN HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT?” (243). They wonder if Archer went to see Dr. Baxter, and Jonah remembers that day at Hazel’s house when Dr. Baxter seemed to be faking his dementia to derail the conversation about the Story siblings. As Milly and Jonah continue to flirt, Jonah starts to see that Milly has taken the family estrangement from her grandmother especially hard. He tries to remind her that “Mildred’s out of her head for never giving [Milly and her cousins] a chance” (247). Milly receives a text from Aubrey with breaking news: Dr. Baxter was found dead that morning, “drowned in a creek in the woods behind his house” (250).

Milly, Aubrey, and Jonah finally make their way to Catmint House to sit down and have brunch with their elusive grandmother. The house is heavily guarded and closed off from the rest of the island. The kids discuss the details of Dr. Baxter’s funeral, which will be a few days from now, and Milly wonders if “Uncle Archer got a chance to talk to Dr. Baxter before he died” (252). Theresa Ryan welcomes them to Catmint House and leads them inside but warns them that their grandmother is taking the news of Frank Baxter’s death very hard and they may need to cut brunch short. Mildred remains cool and detached during brunch but asks questions about their parents. Milly notices that Mildred is “dividing her laser-like attention between Aubrey and Jonah” (263) and completely ignoring Milly. Milly wonders if her grandmother is racist and ignoring her because she is half-Japanese or if she only cares about her sons and not her daughter. Milly excuses herself for the bathroom but decides to “have a look around” (264) her mother’s childhood home. She overhears Theresa on the phone with someone, saying that “it was excessive,” and “[she’s] not sure how soon [she] can pry [Mildred] away” (265) from her grandchildren, whom she seems to have a morbid fascination with. When Theresa hangs up, Milly sneaks into the room, checks the caller ID, and learns that Theresa was talking to Donald.